David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.

26 November 2012

Theatre of the Actors of Regard pitched for a third such : analyze something

The concept was promoted to the producers of the previous two films, but without success.

analyze something: On the run from others of the mob, de Niro attempts to hide-out in a Korean Buddhist monastery. There he encounters Billy Crystal as a trainee monk, still rattled after this and that, trying to get his life together. Hilarious exchanges between the two as they struggle to make sense of the Zen view of the world.

In the Korean Zen tradition, one generally meditates on the koan What is this? This question derives from an encounter between the Sixth Patriarch, Huineng (638–713 C.E.), and a young monk, Huaijang, who became one of his foremost disciples:Huaijang entered the room and bowed to Huineng. Huineng asked: “Where do you come from?” “I came from Mount Sung,” replied Huaijang. “What is this and how did it get here?” demanded Huineng. Huaijang could not answer and remained speechless. He practiced for many years until he understood. He went to see Huineng to tell him about his breakthrough. Huineng asked: “What is this?” Huaijang replied: “To say it is like something is not to the point. But still it can be cultivated.”

In the ever-percolating art world one genre, artist, culture or medium can come to the fore and take the stage as the ‘next big thing’. But sometimes an artist whose intrinsically fascinating work has already been appreciated throughout the decades comes to light anew.

Australian conceptual artist Peter Tyndall is ready for his close up once more: his status as one of the country’s most important late 20th-century painters is underscored by a new exhibition that curates his work throughout the decades, from the early '70s to the present day.

The Anna Schwartz Gallery at the Carriageworks Arts Centre, a vast industrial space in Sydney’s inner city, has commissioned a personal friend of the artist’s from the late 1960s to curate. Doug Hall, former Queensland Art Gallery director, allows the observer to follow the narrative arc of Tyndall’s distinctive pictorial iconography from the maze-like busyness of his black-and-white work in the '70s, to the more starkly graphic symbolism and pop colour of the nineties and boldly simplistic figurative work of the noughties.

The one thing that remains eternal is each work’s title, which is always A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/someone looks at something.... Tyndall rejects the fundamental status quo of individual titles in favour of describing the overall act that occurs with each painting – observation and the meaning we then attach to it. He also eschews the traditional exhibition bio as another “convention that irks”. As the bio is a ‘construction’, Tyndall will only craft one as a one-off enhancement of a particular show.

Stripped of the usual props, it is the intrinsic work of art that contains, as Hall puts it, “all that we were required to know” – the act of subjective observation completing a reciprocal circle of connection. Texts, logos, symbols, rectangles, graphics and figures are subject to the intuitive and intellectual appreciation of the viewer, who brings their own morass of associations and assessments.

Thanks to Schwartz’s passion for gathering works by an artist hung in Australia’s most prestigious national galleries, other generations can enjoy the wry rejection of convention by an elder of the local art tribe – who is also one of the art community's liveliest bloggers: blogging something…